Ukraine-Russia conflict newest: Trump ‘very angry with Putin’ and threatens extra sanctions if ceasefire not agreed

Donald Trump has said Russian president Vladimir Putin is already aware of the US president’s anger towards him.

NBC News reported that Mr Trump told a reporter in a phone call he was furious about Putin’s suggestion that Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration should be replaced by a UN-mandated government.

Mr Trump said Putin knows he is angry with him, but said he had “a very good relationship with him” and “the anger dissipates quickly… if he does the right thing.”

The US president added that tariffs on Russian oil would come within a month without a ceasefire deal.

US president Donald Trump referred to Volodymyr Zelensky as a “dictator without elections” as recently as last month.

Echoing Kremlin propaganda, Mr Trump berated him as a “modestly successful comedian” before a calamitous White House press conference.

Speaking from the far north Russian city of Murmansk last week, Mr Putin floated the idea of a UN-mandated government in Kyiv as a way of allowing Ukraine to “hold democratic elections”.

He said a temporary administration under the auspices of the UN could be discussed “with the United States, with European countries, and of course with our partners and friends”.

“This would be in order to hold democratic elections, to bring to power a capable government trusted by the people and then to begin with it talks on a peace agreement and sign legitimate documents,” he said.

Mr Zelensky has served beyond his term due to elections being put on hold under martial law following Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

No, no, no, Mr President. Volodymyr Zelensky is not a dictator. Ukraine did not start the war. The Ukrainian people are right to defend themselves against Vladimir Putin’s aggression. And it is time to speak the truth – without equivocation.

Donald Trump’s words on the war in Ukraine cannot be half-accepted or negotiated around. They must be rejected. Truth is too important. And the truth is that Mr Trump is turning the values of the American republic on their head. He stands at the head of a nation founded on the idea that a people have the right to decide their own future. That noble idea cannot be given up without a fight.

The signs are that we may be witnessing nothing short of a revolution in world affairs: the switch of the United States from an ally of Europe to an ally of Russia. From an ally of freedom and democracy to an ally of dictatorship, oppression and brutality.

Read the full editorial from 21 February here:

Last month, Trump accused Mr Zelensky, who he called a “modestly successful comedian” in a reference to his previous career as a sitcom star and entertainer, of having “talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start.”

“A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left,” Mr Trump said.

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US president Donald Trump is “very angry” and “p***** off” with Vladimir Putin, according to NBC News.

The US network reported that Mr Trump told a reporter in a phone call he was furious about Mr Putin’s call for regime change in Ukraine, saying the comments were “not going in the right direction”.

“If Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine, and if I think it was Russia’s fault — which it might not be — but if I think it was Russia’s fault, I am going to put secondary tariffs on oil, on all oil coming out of Russia,” Mr Trump told NBC News.

“That would be that if you buy oil from Russia, you can’t do business in the United States,” Trump said. “There will be a 25 per cent tariff on all oil, a 25- to 50-point tariff on all oil.”

Kyiv has accused Vladimir Putin of a war crime after a military hospital was allegedly targeted by an Iranian-made Shahed drone in northeastern Ukraine.

The hospital was struck by the drone in Kharkiv on Saturday as Russian forces launched a huge air attack across Ukraine involving nearly 100 airstrikes and 150 deadly glide bombs.

“[This was a] deliberate, targeted shelling of a Ukrainian medical institution by the Russian army. War crimes have no statute of limitations,” Ukraine’s general staff said.

At least 153 KAB missiles – winged explosives weighing up to 1,500 kilograms nicknamed the “building destroyer” – were dropped on Ukrainian towns and cities during the attack, according to Ukraine’s general staff.

A ceasefire in Ukraine may not happen ‘this year’ despite US president Donald Trump’s claim to bring about a quick truce, a top Russian negotiator said.

Grigory Karasin, 75, who led the Russian delegation at talks last week with the US in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, said a peace deal may not come “this year or at the end of this year”.

“It would be naive to expect any breakthrough results at the very first meeting,” he told Russian state-owned TV channel Rossiya-24.

Mr Trump repeatedly said he would broker a ceasefire ‘within 24 hours’ of becoming president, before back tracking to a timeline of six months in January.

This month, he said Russia “could be dragging their feet” in a rare sign of frustration with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

So, Steve Witkoff, the Henry Kissinger of our age. What do we know about this man charged simultaneously with bringing peace to the Middle East, creating harmony between Russia and Ukraine, and forging a love-in with Iran?

The routine profiles tell us little about the 68-year-old Bronx-born property developer beyond the fact that he was in the same line of work as Donald Trump and that the two men played a lot of golf together. But Trump clearly believes his golfing chum has exceptional negotiation skills. Why else would he pick him to shuttle between Putin, Hamas, and Bibi Netanyahu in a bid to solve everything all at once?

Kissinger had been a US army intelligence officer in the Second World War. At Harvard, he developed an extensive knowledge of foreign policy, and he became a leading expert in arms control and disarmament. By the time he became national security adviser, he was “one of the most important theorists about foreign policy ever to be produced by the United States”, according to his biographer, Niall Ferguson.

Steve Witkoff develops luxury hotels, Alan Rusbridger writes.

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